Pages

…..'A sense of humour lends you poise, it gives you balance and it helps you to bend without breaking'…..

(HH Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda)

MenoSunday; Life Lived Easy

Next on the list of 'desert island discs' would have to be Vedic Chanting. Not the stuff which has been tamed and tizzied for the Western ear (though, to be fair, some of it is very good), but the right and proper, rhythmic and tonal. It is one of the great benefits of the technological age, that all of our Vedanta lectures, a significant amount of our chanting and satsangas and even some of our entertainments were recorded whilst at Sandeepany. There is a small irony to this, actually.

As I prepared to leave OZ, Emm had - almost at the last minute - placed in my hands a small music player. You know the kind I mean. Bless, her. She has always tried to ply me with gadgets. Not an easy job with a Luddite like the YAMster. I love music, yes - but on the computer or disc player. I am not one for sticking buds in my ears. It hurts. So I was perhaps a little less than entirely grateful at having another bit of equipment I thought might be left forgotten and unused.

It was; for about a month. Then I saw a fellow brahmacharin with their mini recorder and it suddenly twigged that, perhaps, I might have such a thing!

Whilst not strictly a disc, this offering, it may pacify the critics a bit if I mention that there is an official chanting disc brought out from our batch - again the issue of not really being a 'single'... but a CD is a single disc. Isn't it? Anyhoo, this bit I have cobbled together from my personal recordings and images; the latter being there to encourage you to work through the entire four minutes. The Sahasranaama as actually about 20 minutes to chant (at least, at the speed we did it), but didn't want to stretch your acquaintance too far. Sadly, when holding such a recorder, it is impossible not to be the dominant voice; so yes, that is me scaring seagulls again.